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Sunday, January 8, 2012

The price for speaking out: journalist Ece Temelkuran is fired from Habertürk

In an interview with Matthew Cassel, journalist Ece Temelkuran recounts why she was fired, and gives her opinion on the recent political developments in Turkey, arrested journalists, freedom expression, and the state of journalism in Turkey.

Firing Turkey’s Ece Temelkuran: The Price of Speaking OutAl Akhbar

"Temelkuran
has played a leading role on social media in defending 11 journalists
who are currently on trial in Turkey for supporting illegal “terrorist”
organizations.

For the first time in her nearly two-decade-long career,
journalist Ece Temelkuran is without a job. The feature reporter and
columnist, currently in Tunisia, writes regularly about the plight of
Turkey’s ethnic minorities. She was fired from her staff position at the
Haberturk daily on Thursday after publishing articles critical
of the Turkish government’s handling of the massacre of Kurds on
December 28 at Iraq’s border.

Turkey has long been feted by mainstream Western media as a bastion
of secular democracy in a wider and largely Muslim region ruled by
despots. However, critics argue that this image is allowing the Justice
and Development Party (AKP) headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan to become increasingly authoritarian. In recent years,
journalists who report on stories not fitting within the government
narrative have been targeted.

[...]

MC: Do you feel that you've always been able to write what you want to? Have you ever been censored?

ET: I haven't been censored, but when I reported
from Kurdistan in northern Iraq, even mentioning the name 'Kurdistan'
was taboo. And when I wrote about tens of Kurdish children being
tortured in 2003 people were outraged. There has always been pressure on
journalists who write on the Kurdish issue.

But pressure on media has never been like this. Now it's fear of
being imprisoned, and once you're in prison no one can get you out.
[Journalists] Ahmet Sik and Nadim Sener have been in jail for 11 months,
they didn't even know until 6 or 7 months [after their arrest] what the
charges [against them] are.

Since there is government propaganda to legitimize these
prosecutions, it's very hard to get around this. The propaganda machine
is huge. Not only nationally but internationally.

MC: Did your firing come as a surprise?

ET: Not really because the stand I took about the
arrested journalists and the massacre [of 35 Kurdish civilians on
Turkey's border with Iraq] was too strong for the mainstream media to
handle. Because the prime minister, a few days ago just after the
massacre, [threatened] ones who use [the term] 'massacre,' and I've been
using it on twitter and social media.

MC: That sounds like Turkey's recent warnings to
France after its senate voted to recognize the 1915 mass killing of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks as a "genocide." Why is language so important
for the Turkish government?

ET: Because terminology creates political and
ethical responsibility. Then if you use term 'massacre,' the prime
minister might have to apologize for the massacre, which he doesn't want
to. Rather he wants to blame media. And that media was silent for about
a half day after the incident. None of the networks gave the news until
prime minister’s official statement about massacre, but that wasn't
enough. He only wants to see his thoughts [printed in the newspapers].

MC: Why were you fired?

ET: The last two articles I wrote might be perceived
as 'too controversial.’ One was called "Sir, yes Sir!" referring to the
prime minister. The article ended "So you give the orders my commander
but I'm not listening to you anymore. We are the rest of this country!
We are not listening to your orders anymore!"

The last article was about how 19 of those killed were kids between
12 and 15. He made this speech about Uludere [the border town where the
attack happened] massacre, which was outrageous, and he blamed
journalists. And I wrote an article repeating the number [of dead]
ridiculing the prime minister’s cruel attitude in a bitter way.

MC: Are you the only person writing like this in the mainstream media?

ET: There are a few others, and all of them called
me today to say that ‘we are coming as well to the land of unemployment,
just wait for us.’ They say, 'we are writing our articles as if we're
writing our last articles.' Everyone is pessimistic about the coming
days.

MC: Why are they targeting veteran journalists like Nadim Sener and Ahmet Sik?

ET: Because they were writing books about the Gulen
movement [Islamists believed to have close ties to the AKP] getting
organized in police department and intelligence services. They took the
manuscript of Ahmet's book, The Army of the Imam (which has since
been published online). Nadim's book [on how the Gulen movement is
organizing in the police and state intelligence] is unpublished.
They were reporting on different things, especially criticizing the government and revealing the bad practices of government."